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Playing the Monsters - Gamerstable Ep81

Players playing monsters used to be a DMís nightmare. Then came games like Vampire the Masquerade and Werewolf the Apocalypse, where you could do just that and redefined the horror genre of gaming forever.

Now, twenty years later, people are still playing the monsters and loving it.

not sure what you are getting at. i've guest-starred as npc villains in my friends campaigns on multiple occasions. and played non-standard races all the time. white wolf got the idea from d&d in the first place, imo. ^^

I totally agree, Nijineko. Most modern RPGs got something from D&D and White Wolf games are no exception.

The point of the episode is that in the past the concept of all the characters being "monsters" was taboo, especially in traditional fantasy, but since the popularity of modern fantasy has grown and the especially since Vampire the Masquerade hit the shelves it is more socially acceptable to have a group of characters that would have been considered monsters.

That aside, I really like the idea of someone "guest-starring" as an NPC in a game that they are not usually in. That would bring a different perspective on the character and inject some life into them. Bravo (oh and yoink... I am definitely using that in my repertoire).

please do. the situation was that there was a statue/fountain where the statue was actually a disguised evil monster, that managed to get off a summon for a big bad before being destroyed by the party zerg-rushing it.

given that it is well known that i play exclusively "good aligned" or "good leaning" type characters, it was quite a shock for the group i was invited in for that one session for the big bad evil dude to start off the combat by challenging them on the moral and ethical rightness of attacking an "evil" monster out of hand with no warning... "and you claim to be so good and righteous, did you give them a chance to choose for themselves if they wanted to be good? no? well, if that sort of behavior is "good", so-called, then i want no part in it!" (ect., etc., ect. and in the mean time, he was stalking around and pacing and posing dramatically while haranguing the party. (and using bluff checks to hide the fact that he was placing various magical effects around the battlefield while he lambasted their purported morals and ethics....) ;D

i debated with them for a good hour or two before combat even started. and since one of them was actually chaotic neutral, and the rest more towards the lawful and good end of the spectrum, we had quite the fun intraparty+villain debate.

and, boy did they have a tough fight of it, once combat did break out! i had managed to place a number of detrimental effects, that they suddenly ran into during combat, what another shocker! ^^ they did manage to defeat it in the end, but they still talk about that debate and fight to this day.

I have the polar opposite effect on my game group. They always expect me to be a conniving bastard. It would totally throw them if I came in for a one-off as an altruistic, morality conscious character.

on the other end of the spectrum, i just had that pleasant little surprise that you get as a dm once in a blue moon. a game session a month or two ago. in a dungeon under the castle looking for the missing marque of the land, the party came upon a well, with a ladle. player A has his character walk up to the well and pick up the ladle. whereupon player B hisses at A that he better not even be thinking about messing with the well. player A replies that he just wanted the ladle and perish the thought, he knows better-just stepping on the edge a bit. player B subsides with warning grumbles. whereupon the two players had to explain this sudden segue to the rest of the clueless group.

in a completely unrelated game session these two were also players of mine. in that session (and a couple of other non-connected adventures), they encountered a few pool, well, and fountain based traps, culminating in a particular experience with took them something like two weeks of multiple sessions a week to figure out how to escape from, and when they finally did, they full stop ran away, and never looked back.

that was over twenty years ago in real life.

and those two still, to this very day, have never-ever touched, messed with, or interacted with any well, pool, or fountain that they cannot absolutely avoid by any possible means, in any game where i am the dm.... now THAT's an impression. ^^